Cruz on 2016 bid: 'I'm not focused on the politics'

7/21/13 10:35 AM EDT

Freshman Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a potential Republican presidential candidate, tried to set aside talk of a 2016 bid in an interview aired Sunday by saying he wasn’t “focused on the politics.”

“We are having a national debate about which direction the country should go, and what I am doing now is trying to participate in that national debate,” Cruz said in the interview in Iowa on ABC's "This Week." “I’m not focused on the politics. I’ve been in the office all but seven months. The last office I was elected to was student council. So this has been a bit of a whirlwind.”

But Cruz also addressed questions regarding his eligibility to run for president: “My mother was born in Wilmington, Delaware. She’s a U.S. citizen, so I’m a U.S. citizen.”

“I’m not going to engage in a legal debate. The facts are clear,” he added. “I can tell you where I was born and who my parents were. And then as a legal matter, others can worry about that. I’m not going to engage.”